I stopped my attack. The monster had every opportunity to defend itself. We were surrounded by fire, so why didn't it use a more powerful skill?
There had to be a reason. The so-called boss seemed to accept his fate. I heard Jacob scream. He was angry. I turned around and looked into his bloodshot eyes.
He had the Eternal Flame in his hands, and it was burning through his skin. He cried as the Eternal Flame seared away the flesh around his fingers.
"Let it go, we already won," I pleaded.
"No, we didn't! It's not dead yet, can't you see?" he screamed as blood started to pour out of his ears. He stumbled to the floor.
His hands were gone, but the flame disappeared too. I then turned around and looked at the boss. He smiled, and the flame reappeared in his hands.
"Floor Level Two Complete."
Everything started to turn to dust. I picked up Jacob and our tent stone, and we started to walk towards the door bathed in light. I stopped, then turned around and used Identify on it.
Level 100.
Throughout the fight, I hadn't used Identify, but I could still see his name. It seemed like the dungeon and the real world were different. The real world didn't give much information purposely.
While the dungeon left clues. Surviving the first floor gave some hints, but the second floor didn't say anything. It didn't state that we had to kill it, only mentioning the Eternal Flame on the door.
More importantly, the boss was holding back. With so much fire and fire crystals around, why wasn't it spamming its attacks? In fact, I'd go as far as to say dungeons are places to learn and get stronger.
They aren't here to kill me. If they wanted to, I'd be dead by now. So there had to be something more. The system seemed to want something from us. For an almighty being, it didn't make sense to place me in this world for nothing unless it was bored.
Either way, I entered the door made of light. I entered another floor.
"3rd Floor."
"Eat until your heart is content."
That was all I received. After a battle to the death, I was given a feast. I laughed at how the system seemed to play games. We were all just puppets.
Surrounding us was a land of flame. The grass was orange, flickering in and out like fire. The trees were more solid and bore fruits of fire.
The sky, once blue, was now red, with no sun in sight. It made sense because everything was fire. The distant mountains were also made of fire.
Then it clicked. I wasn't hot. I didn't even cover my body with Essence. Another thought came: if everything was made of fire, did that mean I was breathing fire?
Was the law of common sense broken? I walked up to a tree and picked an orange fruit with fire patterns. I used Identify on it.
Fire Fruit.
Based on my previous analysis, the Fire Fruit wouldn't kill me. So I took a deep bite. And I didn't regret it. It was juicy and sweet.
I didn't know fire could be that sweet, and the burns on my chest were gone. The fruit did wonders.
Then it clicked. I forgot about Jacob. I hurriedly turned around and willed my healing essence to heal him.
But it didn't want to leave my body. Even when it did, it dispersed, almost like it didn't want to stay outside. This time, I pushed a denser volume out of my body through sheer willpower.
His fingers' skin reappeared, but there was a black flame mark there. It seemed like his fingers were permanently damaged by the eternal flame.
I climbed back up in the tree. Gazing into the distance, I picked another fruit and bit into it. This time, it was sour and dry.
But I still swallowed it. Mother always said, "Don't waste your food."
I then turned inward. I felt the essence flow through my body, tracing it through my veins, all leading to my heart. With each beat, my heart produced essence.
Seeing essence produced like that was beautiful. It was like a generator. I couldn't even describe the feeling. I then pulled all the possible essence around my hand, and my hand burst into a fiery red flame. It was so red, like blood.
Then I held it and condensed it. It got darker red, to the point where steam was produced. Cracks started to appear around my hand. I stopped, and blood ran down my hand.
So, essence is produced by my heart and travels through my blood vessels. But how does my heart produce essence? Something was happening that I didn't understand. Based on what I knew, the heart only pumps blood. So how does something that only pumps blood produce a type of energy?
I was ready to look inward, then I wondered how I was able to look inward. Did I have X-ray vision? Was it mana? Mana was weird; it had abilities I didn't understand. As a matter of fact, I would say mana is more broken than essence.
This shit didn't make sense. Nothing ever did.
I laughed out loud. Everything I had experienced was some load of shit.
I smiled in amusement at how things just worked. I looked inward again. I wasn't looking for my heart; it was something called the core.
I couldn't find anything like that. No matter where I searched, it was like it didn't exist. How could something that doesn't exist produce energy?
I stopped my train of thought and looked at Jacob, who was getting up. I threw him his tent stone and said, "Catch!"
He caught it with ease. He looked around, seemingly confused. He lost focus in his eyes; he was looking at the system message.
I let him ponder for a while. After a minute or so, I asked him, "Hey, where do you find your core?" as I threw him a firefruit.
He caught the fruit and dug in without a second thought. Fruit juice splashed over his face. He looked at me for more, and I threw him another.
He screamed out and spat the food on the ground, "What the fuck was that?"
I laughed, hitting my leg. "I had no clue, kid. As I said before, where do you find your mana core?"
"It's behind your intestines, right above your navel. It's very small, so you'll probably have a hard time finding it," he said.
He then turned around and looked at the fire scene with a smile.
"This doesn't make any sense. To stand around fire and not get burned is something I never thought would be real," he said, turning around as his eyes glowed.
"I have two theories."
"Lay them on me," I said, getting comfortable in the tree.
"The first theory is that we aren't here physically but spiritually. But that theory doesn't hold much. Why? If we were here spiritually, then I wouldn't be able to feel my core. Or we are somehow in a simulation."
"Let me hear your next theory," I said, turning around to give him all my attention.
"We are protected by the system. The system is all-powerful and mighty. It reincarnated thousands of people to live in a world that we knew nothing about. It even gave us a status, with energy and attributes. If you ask me, the system just made fire not burn us; it has means to block that."
I nodded, understanding where he was coming from with the second theory. I then offered my own.
"Don't you think it would be easier to just make fire not burn? Why spend so much energy to protect the two of us?"
Jacob shouted in disbelief, "Yours doesn't make any sense either. How can fire not burn? Won't that make everything else have no meaning? Does that make ice not cold? Does that make water not wet?"
"Water is not wet," I said.
"Don't give me that bullshit, old man. It doesn't matter if it's wet or not; it makes things wet. It has a property, it holds meaning."
I smiled at his outburst as he went on. I then offered my piece of thought, "Does anything make sense?"
He stopped and thought. I knew what he wanted to say; of course things make sense, life had to make sense, it had to have meaning. "I'm not saying things don't make sense, kid. All I'm saying is if the system says fire is not hot, then it's not. There's nothing to discuss other than that. We hold meaning."
"Just like how the system gives fire its meaning," I said with a smile that irritated Jacob; his frustration was all over his face.
"Question for you, kid. Earlier you said that the core is very small, so how can you wield so much fire? Does that amount of fire come from your core?"
At my question, the kid stopped his antics and started to question my question too.
He pointed and looked at me. "You're right, but I don't know. Things just work. But what I could say is only after I unlocked my class, Fire Mage, was I able to use so much fire mana. Before, I couldn't gather as much, and it took a while to gather in my core. After that, my speed of gathering fire was way faster, and it seems like I didn't have to stand in the sun all day. Energy just gathered and converted to fire mana. Things just worked out."
Our conversation died down. I came to conclude that this kid didn't question shit. I could even go as far as to say this guy is just here for the ride.
"This guy gives two less fucks than me," I laughed even louder. I had to love this delinquent.
Then I said, "Let's get serious. The system said we should eat until our hearts are content, so we should do that."
I jumped down from the tree, put my hand on it, and shook it; everything fell to the ground. I started to throw fruits into my mouth like they were candy.
I was hit with first then sour, and the pattern was consistent. I could even decrease how weird it felt; Jacob was doing the same.
After an hour, I was full. I looked at the kid, and saw him juggling the fruit from one hand to another; he snatched it out of the air. "What would happen if we took this fruit and planted it?"
"We would fail," I said, the most obvious thing to me.
"Why?" he asked.
"The floor message said to eat until our hearts are content."
"Is your heart not content? Sometimes you have to just let go," I asked him, surprise crossing his face. He smiled in understanding and dropped the fruit.
Everything started to crumple around us, turning into dust. He looked at me and said, "We couldn't move on because I was greedy."
I smiled at his statement and said, "Yes, the dungeon isn't about killing us; it seems to have a message, messages that aren't so clear but they are there."
POV of Henry
A white male sat in a lead chair made out of wood, flipping through a bunch of papers that held different crimes. Each crime had the suspect's name and its punishment, but it even described how they did it.
Henry lifted his head up from the table in displeasure and looked around. His office was made out of cement. But he wasn't admiring the view; someone had intruded. He was a man who liked his privacy.
As he stared at a plant, he smirked. To the common eye, no one was there, but to his eyes, the plant's aura was different.
A green body was forming out of the plant. Her head was created, then her features. A dryad appeared in front of Henry.
She swings from left to right, showing off her curves. She stood naked in front of Henry. He didn't even look at her; Henry already knew who had the audacity to enter his domain.
The dryad sat on a makeshift leaf chair that grew from the concrete. She sat with her legs open. Abby wasn't like this in her past life; she was a female who had discipline and manners.
But her race affected her; it changed how she viewed herself. Nature was pure; it didn't have anything to hide.
Henry didn't lift his head, but he could see what she was doing without looking. "You know I have a wife, and she believes I'm cheating on her with you. Can't you put on some clothes?"
Abby gave him the look that said they had already discussed this. "Primordial of Manipulation, have you located the Primordial of Death?"
"I did, but I lost his aura recently," Henry said, while looking at the page that detailed a rape crime. He signed where it said "death punishment" with his ink pen.
"Winter is coming. We need to gather all humanity's royal primordials. Without unity, we will not survive winter," she said with urgency.
"I am enough, and that guy doesn't have that. He doesn't give off the aura of a royal primordial. I would have known; his aura doesn't give off that feeling."